Monday, July 4, 2016

“A Whole Lot” by Bradley Wind

It’s the early
1980s. You’re 12 or 13 years old, a little small for your age, but there’s a
world out there that desperately needs exploring. Like the old, decaying
mansion where the murders happened. The new video arcade getting ready to open.
And the treehouse you find, the one with the dirty magazines.

Abel Velasco is
that 12- or 13-year-old, but his has not been a normal childhood. A mother
institutionalized for the effects of drug abuse. A father who disappeared when
he was a baby. An uncle who took him in but died in a freak accident. A series
of foster homes, until finally he lands with his father’s sister, the one Abel
calls Aunt Pigpie (and he’s being charitable). She’s abusive, although Abel
avoids her wrath with a mention of a sale of junk food at the grocery store.

There’s one
additional thing you should know about Abel. He has a form of autism. It
manifests itself in his behavior – he has a photographic memory, can’t bear to
be touched, likes and dislikes all kinds of smells and tastes, and sees number
patterns everywhere. He loves the works of the philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes. And he
is as up-to-date on mathematical theory as any university professor in America.

Abel is the hero
of A
Whole Lot, the first novel by author Bradley Wind. It’s a story that
pulls the reader in and doesn’t let go.

It’s a
coming-of-age novel, yes, but it’s unlike any coming-of-age novel I’ve ever
read. Wind has drawn characters – children and adults alike – who are recognizable
and familiar (well, almost; I never knew an aunt like Aunt Pigpie). The
characters often seem a New Jersey version of the people we find in Flannery O’Connor’s
stories.

Bradley Wind

Wind is an
artist and writer, a native Pennsylvanian. He’s worked as a toy designer for K’nex
Industries and as an IT manager for Pearl S. Buck International. He’s currently
the director of a child-focused non-profit organization.

What he’s done
with Abel is something extraordinary, for we find ourselves inside of a mind
that is brilliant and simultaneously normal and abnormal. And all the time the
story has a backdrop of numbers, numbers theory, and mathematical patterns,
because that is how Abel thinks and functions. And it is how Abel survives.

Poetry at Work

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Professional writer exploring faith and culture, life and work; happily married to Janet, the love of my life; father of two grown sons. Award-winning speechwriter and communication consultant. I am also a contributing editor for The High Calling and for TweetSpeak Poetry. I am also the author of the novels "Dancing Priest" and "A Light Shining," and the non-fiction book "Poetry at Work."